The Green Banana Sparknotes

"Greensleeves" by Alan Spence is a short story describing the life of an elderly lady living alone on the top floor of high rise flats in Glasgow. Spence creates a character readers feel sympathy for through isolation and lonliness, themes that run prominently throughout the story.

Hugh Prather, an American writer, once said “Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.” Change is an inevitable part of being human. As we grow we meet and discover new ideas and people, that change our thinking. For the most part, change happens in very small amounts in life, but there are times at which one single event can lead to great personal development or downfall. In the novels Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, change of physical and social interactions and environments leads to change in personal beliefs. However, while Purple Hibiscus portrays change as a beneficial transformation, Things Fall Apart argues that change is undesirable. In Purple Hibiscus,

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was published in 1906. After reading two-hundred and ninety-four pages, it is evident that humans have been shaping the world over time and the world has been shaping us as well. A lot has changed since the industrial revolution, the time frame in which this novel takes place. Our food industries have improved, money value has risen, and job opportunities have expanded. Throughout The Jungle the reader follows an immigrant family on their journey of hardships and losses as they grapple through gory times that was the Industrial Revolution.

In The Jungle by Uptown Sinclair, the immigrants were exploited to a point of slavery. They were not treated with care, and were considered a number and not a person. The company did not care whether or not how the person did their job, or how much danger the person in. As long as the job was done on time, and no money was wasted. At some points the men would not be able to work. Some men had little to no feeling in their hands due to cuts, and bruises. Uptown Sinclair showed this by saying, “The hands of these men would be criss-crossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them.”-chapter 8 Sinclair. No person should have to go through all the pain and suffering these men had. It is hard for a person to make

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a vivid account of life for the working class in the early 1900s. Jurgis Rudkus and his family travel to the United States in search of the American dream and an escape from the rigid social structure of Lithuania. Instead, they find a myriad of new difficulties. Sinclair attributes their problems to the downfalls of capitalism in the United States. While America’s system was idealistic for Jurgis and his family at first, the mood of the story quickly transforms to assert that capitalism is evil. This theme drives the author’s message and relay of major issues throughout the entirety of the novel. The idea of capitalism and social Darwinism is to

While reading through different non-fiction essays, one that left a great impact on my thoughts was “I’m a Banana and Proud of It” by Wayson Choy. Choy gives his story as a North American citizen with a Chinese background. Families pushed for their children to belong in North America, causing children to be labelled as “Bananas” for being “yellow on the outside and white on the inside” (Choy); a term to describe people in Choy’s generation who assimilated very well into the American culture. Many teenagers like him were attracted to the American culture and strayed from their Chinese culture. Although at the same time, they didn’t feel like they belonged as an American due to looking Chinese. People had difficulties placing themselves in one

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair and Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass both bring forth personal or fictional events that capture the interest of the the reader. The use of pathos in their writing along with true events questions the ethics, morality, and human rights of each individual at the time setting for the publication.

Critics often argue that Upton Sinclair, author of many classic American novels including The Jungle, was cynical and bitter even. However if one were to dig just a bit deeper they may realize that Sinclair was spot on in his idea that this “American dream” that our country sells is actually a work of fiction.

What societal and government reforms did “The Jungle” call for. Do you feel this novel was effective in bringing about any of these reforms.

As of 2015, immigrants make up more than 43.3 percent of the United States population. By the early 1900s there were already more than 10 million immigrants living in America. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle reveals the struggles and hardships of a family that immigrated to the United States from Lithuania during the 1900s. Although many immigrant families came to America in search of a better life, soon most found themselves barely surviving with no job, food, shelter, or money. As is the case of the family in The Jungle. The novel not only unveils the corruption of the political and economic system during the time, but also exposes the severe torment and misery that was faced by the working class. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, describes

America, United Stated of America (USA), is a land of immigrants. The country was built by immigrants but gradually immigration to this country became harder. Several contagious nations of American continents have lot of population living in poverty and were strongly convinced to immigrate to USA illegally, by travelling on foot for several days, crossing deserts, mountains and the southern border of USA, to get a decent and secured better life for them and for their kids. Eric Schlosser in his article " In the Strawberry Fields" honestly assessed the conditions of the migratory work force in California straw berry fields while providing facts and evidences to support

journey. Two of the inner forces that hinder Jay Berry is his fear of the

The Jungle, a novel by the muckraker Upton Sinclair, follows the life of Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus and his family in the first decade of the twentieth century. It describes the various tragedies that befall the family. The novel should be considered part of the American Canon, the body of works that are considered the most important and influential in shaping American culture, because of Sinclair’s unique portrayal of the time, the effect that this novel had on society, and the novel’s literary value.

Everyone has someone they consider family. Sometimes people bond solely with their blood relatives, but more often than not we choose who we consider to be our family as we grow older. This happens most often when people find a spouse, but many also adopt children as their sons and daughters, peers as their brothers and sisters, and role model figures as aunts and uncles. The Bean Trees is written by Barbra Kingsolver and is set in the early 1980 's. It tells the story of a young woman named Taylor, and the life she builds in Tucson Arizona. Far from home, she meets many great people and finds a place where she belongs. Kingsolver shapes her message of the importance of families both blood and found through her use of character archetypes

We eat bananas almost every day; however, most of us do not really know where these fruits come from. In Banana Cultures, John Soluri focuses on the relationship between banana production in Honduras, especially in the North Coast between roughly 1870 and 1975, and banana consumption in the U. S.. He focuses on growing, protecting, transporting, and mass marketing of bananas. John Soluri integrates Agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history in order to trace the symbolic growth of the banana industry. The author admits that his work is highly interdisciplinary, as a desirable trait in the academic world. The study incorporates a wide range of sources, including manuscript census data from Honduras, fruit company records, published scientific records, Honduran and U.S government correspondence, oral testimonies, and ephemera from U.S mass culture. Throughout his work, he combines elements of geography, biology, social history, foreign affairs, and environmental history. Soluri also looks at labor practices and worker’s lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, and the effects of pesticides in the Honduran environment and people. His central argument is that United States consumption of bananas causes major social, political, and environmental change in Honduras. In addition, he looks at the banana pathogens, the ways the United States treated these fungal diseases, and the terribly detrimental effects these new treatments had on the farmers on